Moving a Ten-Ton Dino Deathtrap

Moving a Ten-Ton Dino Deathtrap

Jan. 6, 2015 - Paleontologists anxiously move a ten-ton mound of fragile dinosaur bones from the top of a steep hillside near Moab, Utah. The dinosaur find contains the skeletons of a pack of Utahraptors (cousins of Velociraptors) that may have been trapped in quicksand around 125 million years ago.

Voice of JONATHAN CROSS, CROSS MARINE PROJECTS:
In this project we have a large section of rock that full of
sensitive fossils and organizations that we can’t really move or cut up
individually. So what we have to do is
we have to take this down a very steep sloop, as you will be able to see. And to move such a large section of rock
without breaking it up is quite a good challenge.

JAMES KIRKLAND, STATE PALEONTOLOGIST, UTAH GEOLOGICAL
SURVEY:
We are just north of Arches National Park on a section of
state land which bears a nice assemblage of dinosaurs that we discovered about
ten years ago now . We got a grad
student to do a study of that big sandstone ledge behind me. As he was working I told him, “Keep your eyes
open for dinosaurs.” And he reported
back to me that he found what…the only thing he did find was what looked like a
human arm bone sticking out of the rock.
Something about this big around and hollow.

It turned out to be a foot of a Utahraptor. We also had
parts of a plant-eating dinosaur, an Iguanodon. Basically we think that was the attractor to
bring these animals in. And we ended up finding ten different jaws. Every one of them with all the teeth in
them. We now interpret this as probably
the first good site where we have a lot of dinosaurs skeletons that were trapped
in quicksand.

The preservation is exceptional. Every time we go in we find strings of
vertebrae, we find feet, leg bones, realizing we can’t split it up. And that’s where we made the decision [that]
we have to take out a mammoth block.

SCOTT MADSEN, PALEONTOLOGIST, UTAH GEOLOGICAL SURVEY:
There are other people who have dug up really big blocks but
typically you can drive some big piece of machinery up closer to it and take
advantage of it. This, there was hardly
any place to stand. And so the difficult
now is getting a frame around this thing and getting it dragged down the hill
to a flatbed so we can get it out of here.

JAMES KIRKLAND SOT: Well my big thing in terms of removing
the base is, you know, we clean it up, get the frame put on. And the frame on this is going to be to the
ground in the back.

JONATHAN CROSS, CROSS MARINE PROJECTS:
The paleontologist worked really hard for years and years to
get this all set up the way they needed it to be. And they actually…this rock is exactly where
they found it and it hasn’t moved at all.
So they actually built the framework around it and then had to remove
rock underneath it to get it to set down on the sled.

DON DEBLIEUX, PALEONTOLOGIST, UTAH GEOLOGICAL SURVEY:
So then last fall we were able to actually dig a tunnel
underneath and so that enabled us to put these big timbers in. And that was a little bit scary because you
were just on these pillars and you have this probably te- ton block of
rock. And you’re underneath there
plastering.

It’s a pretty solid frame here. Some major bolts and hardware. So we’re hoping that once we give it a little
pull here, it will hold together pretty well.

[MACHINERY NOISE OF DINOSAUR MOUND RELOCATION]

JAMES KIRKLAND, STATE PALEONTOLOGIST, UTAH GEOLOGICAL
SURVEY:
Well, we pulled the block off the mesa. One more mile of flat dirt and hopefully we
could load this thing up onto a semi-truck.
Right now what we are going to do is bring it…we have a couple of guard
rails. [We’re going to] bolt them to the
guard rail boots that we have on the front because the wood has been wearing
off the bottom. And if we go much
farther like this we wouldn’t have anything holding it together at all.

[NOISE OF DINOSAUR MOUND LIFTED ON TO FLATBED TRUCK]

JAMES KIRKLAND, STATE PALEONTOLOGIST, UTAH GEOLOGICAL
SURVEY:
Once we get it into a lab, the preparation will done under
three microscopes on boom mounts by my
team, which as 120 years of experience between the group of us. Finally getting this thing after ten years
down off the mountain, this is huge progress.

Moving a Ten-Ton Dino Deathtrap

Jan. 6, 2015 - Paleontologists anxiously move a ten-ton mound of fragile dinosaur bones from the top of a steep hillside near Moab, Utah. The dinosaur find contains the skeletons of a pack of Utahraptors (cousins of Velociraptors) that may have been trapped in quicksand around 125 million years ago.